Mount St Mary's vs. New Orleans: Score, Twitter Reaction from March Madness 2017

Mount St. Mary's earned the first win of the 2017 NCAA tournament with a dramatic 67-66 victory over New Orleans in Tuesday's First Four game in Dayton, Ohio.

New Orleans had a chance to win after earning a key stop with 2.6 seconds left, but the ensuing inbounds pass was wild, handing the Mountaineers the one-point win.

The Northeast Conference team will now advance to the round of 64 to take on top-seeded Villanova.

Elijah Long came into the game as leading scorer for The Mount, but he was quiet for much of the night, taking more than 31 minutes to score his first basket and ending with just six points. Fortunately, Junior Robinson came through with a game-high 23 points on 9-of-14 shooting.

The diminutive guard quickly became a fan favorite:

Freshman guard Miles Wilson also had a strong effort with 17 points, 11 rebounds, four assists and two steals.

New Orleans was lucky just to stay in the game after a rough start. The team went 1-of-7 from beyond the arc in the first half and fell behind 30-19 early on.

This crazy play was one of the few things that went the Privateers' way:

New Orleans ripped off a 10-2 run to close the first half, closing its deficit to 32-29. Long's uncharacteristic cold stretch helped keep the Privateers in the game.

The second half featured more back-and-forth play, with the Privateers finding a way to answer every time the Mountaineers seemed ready to pull away.

Both sides also put together some highlight-reel plays as the game progressed:

The Privateers held a 64-63 lead with less than two minutes to play after a pair of Christavious Gill free throws, but Mount St. Mary ripped off four straight points from there. After two free throws from New Orleans' Nate Frye in the final minute, Mount St. Mary's was up one and possessed the ball. Instead of fouling, New Orleans let the clock run down to just a few seconds remaining.

This ended up costing the Privateers the game, creating plenty of question marks:

Frye led the team with 18 points off the bench on 7-of-10 shooting, while Erik Thomas added 12 points and eight rebounds. It wasn't enough to pull off the win, however.

Mount St. Mary's now has two days to prepare for the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament in Villanova. The game will be Thursday at 7:10 p.m. ET, but at least the trip from Dayton to Buffalo won't be too long.

The squad will have to be nearly perfect to upset Josh Hart and company in the round of 64.

Postgame Reaction

While much of the discussion after the game involved New Orleans' decision not to foul on the final defensive possession, head coach Mark Slessinger believed in his call.

"There was 3-4 second difference on clock, the coach said, per Jim Kleinpeter of NOLA.com. "We felt pretty good. Felt we could get a stop."

Meanwhile, he also noted the performance was atypical for his squad.

"There were a lot of things we did that were outside of us and what we did this year," Slessinger added, per Kleinpeter.

Mount St. Mary's will move on to face the defending champions, which apparently doesn't scare the players, via CBS Sports:

"At the end of the day, we all play basketball," Long said of the matchup against Villanova. "You know, it's the same size ball, same size net; it's just who wants it bad. Villanova is a great team, and one thing they bring to the table is their heart, so we just have to match that and I think we'll be in a good position to beat them or play down to the wire and see if we can break a bracket."

The team will hope the confidence can pay off in the 1-16 battle Thursday.